Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The morning brought with it a furious little mouse.
Sterling smuggled a smile as the door to the private dining room opened, revealing Edwina in all her straitlaced glory.
This time she wore brown.
“Good morning,” he said as she strode briskly to the breakfast table. “Did you sleep well?”
A certain look was directed at him. One that said she’d been tossing and turning half the night, and he was the reason for it. “Somewhat.”
“Was it something I said?” he asked mildly, pouring them both a cup of tea.
Fucking tea. If twenty-year-old Sterling could see him now, he’d be wondering what demon had possessed him.
“You know exactly what you said.”
“All you had to do was reply with ‘you’re the very last man I’d ever bed,’ and I would have rescinded my challenge. You didn’t have to unleash that horror upon me again.” He gestured pointedly to her gown.
Smoothing her skirts, she took her place across the table from him. Clearly, Edie had recovered from the shock of his statement last night and was marshalling her entire reserve.
“You are the very last man I would ever….”
And there came the flush again.
“You can’t say it, can you?” he asked with some delight. Edwina’s inability to lie was one of the things he adored most about her. “You know it’s not true, and so you can’t say it.”
She threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “My lord—”
“Sterling.” Popping a piece of toast in his mouth, he licked the jam from his fingers. Deliberately. “You’ve never had any sort of problem with my name before. I don’t see why we should start now.”
“But you are a lord, even if only by title,” she pointed out. “Your father is a duke.”
If there was one way to pall the mood in the room it was by bringing up his father. He scowled at her. Dirty play indeed, Miss Sheffield. “I don’t see what that has to do with any of this?”
“I am not a member of the peerage,” she pointed out as she reached for her toast and butter, “and I have no intention of becoming your mistress.”
He stared at her for long, hot seconds, trying not to think about the bloody ring in his satchel. There was an easy way to answer that charge—marry me then. The words even settled on his tongue, but as he took one look at her face, he decided against uttering them.
If he asked her to marry him right now, then she was going to choke on her tea, spray toast crumbs across the table, and accuse him of trying to murder her. Death by accidental asphyxiation.
She needed time to get used to the shift in circumstances between them.
She was already bloody fighting him about a kiss. A single kiss.
And….
He had been born on silk sheets with servants catering to his every whim. His father had instilled in him the confidence of knowing that no matter what happened in life, he was the Duke of Clarenvale’s son. Or spare, to be honest.
For thirty-one years, if he wanted something then he got it.
And then Edwina walked into his life.
And for the first time he wasn’t sure if she… if she would actually accept his suit.
She was attracted to him. She seemed to like him. Didn’t she?
But he adored her and if truth be told, he suspected that his feelings in the matter were stronger than hers.
Doubt settled in.
What had she called him in the past? A wastrel? A rogue? He of the thousand mistresses, which was a vast overestimation. Reckless. Irresponsible. A vapid charmer—oh yes, he definitely remembered that one.
A duke’s son.
He’d always felt the weight of that mantle around his throat like a collar, but he’d never actively resented it as much as he did now.
“You always think so poorly of me,” he countered, and though his voice came lightly, there was an edge to it. “Have I asked you to be my mistress?”
Edwina blinked. “I do not think poorly of you.”
Well, there was that, at least.
“But what is a woman to think when a gentleman insists he’s going to… to…?”
“Fuck her blind, are the words I believe you’re searching for.”
He was right. Tea went everywhere and she shot him a murderous look as she coughed and spluttered.
“Make her scream with pleasure,” he added, because he wasn’t above a good bit of revenge for these feelings of uncertainty. “Or write her name on her skin with his tongue.”
He didn’t mention exactly where he was going to perform such an act.
He’d been born a gentleman, after all.
Edwina actually flared red.
His voice softened. “And see just how far that blush spreads. I want to kiss it from your skin.”
“My god—”
“Sterling,” he countered. “Though I do believe I can help you see god, if you give me a chance.”
Edwina buried her face in her hands. “You are beyond the pale. Beyond. We’re at the breakfast table.”
“A private breakfast table. And if you gave me a chance, you might actually be breakfast.” He took up his cup and sipped his tea, enjoying the stealthy glare she shot him.
“What’s wrong, Edie? I want to make my intentions very clear so that you don’t deliberately misconstrue them.
I am asking you to be my lover. Not a mistress.
My lover. And see where this… attraction takes us. ”
She pushed to her feet, then hovered there, because her skirt was caught between chairs.
“You know,” he mused. “I think once I get you out of that dress, I’m going to burn it.”
“If you touch my dress, I’ll set fire to your trousers,” she said, with an evil look in her eyes.
He remembered what she’d done to the library. For someone who considered her telekinetic power to be of limited skill, she certainly had a way about a fire. Sterling winced. “I presume the threat is while I’m still wearing them?”
Edwina offered him a vicious little smile as she tugged her skirts free.
“Well, that is one way to get me out of my clothes,” he noted. “Though all you truly have to do is ask.”
Beet red. It was delightful how easily she could be teased.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You’ve never….”
“What? Teased you? I daresay I have.”
“No. You’ve never teased me about this.” For a moment she seemed to share his uncertainty. “I know seducing women is something you do with half a thought but I’m not—”
“Now, you just stop right there.” He set his tea down, a hint of anger flaring. “I do not seduce women with half a thought. I haven’t bloody been with a woman in years.”
She tipped her chin up sharply as if preparing for battle. “One doesn’t simply send a gentleman their undergarments in the post without cause.”
He scrubbed at his mouth. How the hell was he going to convince her of the truth? “Apparently, some do. And it’s not me they’re interested in. I’m merely a means to get closer to the Clarenvale duchy. I swear, Edwina, I am almost a candidate for the Benedictine monastery.”
“I just find that difficult to believe. Before I joined your employ, you were well known for your affairs. And now you expect me to believe you’ve simply decided the pleasures of the flesh no longer suit you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She frowned. “Then why… why would you—?”
“Because of you.”
The words simply came out of him.
It took her aback. “What?”
All these years it had come easy to him. A smile. A simple flirtation. And then he’d be stealing a kiss in a dark corner.
Why did he have to fall in love with the one woman who was determined to thwart him?
Sterling closed his eyes and clasped his hands behind his head. “Do you honestly believe that I enjoy tea that much that I’ve spent three years drinking gallons of it with you?”
Silence.
He dared to open an eye.
Edwina stared at him as if he was a complex equation she wasn’t quite certain how to answer.
He unleashed a steady breath. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“I adore the way your nose wrinkles when you’re studying a book you don’t agree with.
I could listen to you for hours when you’re expounding on your thoughts behind the complex ramifications behind runic structure.
I love your mind. I love the way you argue with me all afternoon, even when you know you’re wrong.
I love your horrific spinster caps. I want to pluck them from your hair and kiss my way down your neck.
I could stare at your eyelashes for hours.
I am besotted, Edwina. Utterly and stupidly besotted with you. And you haven’t even noticed.”
Her pretty pink lips parted on a whisper. “What?”
He pushed to his feet. “It’s been you. For three years you’re all I’ve been able to think about, and yet, I might as well be invisible. And then you kissed me. You kissed me, and then you were gone, and all I had was a bloody resignation letter. I am not done with this. I am not done with you.”
“Besotted?” Her eyes were very round. “With me?”
He couldn’t restrain a wry smile. “Why else do you think I tolerate looking at that abomination all day?”
He gestured to her gown.
But there was no familiar scowl. No roll of the eyes. It appeared he’d caught her utterly by surprise.
His throat felt inexplicably thick. “Yes, besotted,” he said, circling the table toward her.
“How else is one to feel when one’s secretary is batting away an infestation of spriggans with a broom?
What else am I able to think when she is bandaging my arm and chiding me most vociferously for doing battle with a necromancer?
And all I can think about is how much her lips resemble the crushed petals of a rose, or how her hair is all awry and there’s ash on her cheeks, and her spectacles are missing in the rush…
. And how much I want to kiss her in that moment. ”
Edwina blinked up at him as he paused right at the circumference of her skirts.
“You have ruined me,” he said, “for all other women. Because when I behold you, I am filled with the utmost awe and wonder.”
Edwina blushed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything at all.”
Capturing her face between his palms, he bent down and brushed his mouth against hers.
Once. Twice.
A thrill lit through him as her fingertips came to rest on his chest.
And then she leaned into him, kissing him back.